Topline
Former President Donald Trump’s nephew, Fred C. Trump III, accused his uncle of using Black people as “props,” but stopped short of calling him racist, in a new interview detailing allegations from his new book about the Trump family, including how he heard the former president use the N-word and suggest disabled people should “die.”
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center on July … [+]
Key Facts
Calling his uncle “atomic crazy,” Trump III told ABC News Trump “at time[s] espouses things that people who I believe are racist espouses,” but added “I don’t believe he’s racist . . . I just think that he uses people, whether they’re Black or they’re . . . he uses them as props, and when he gets what he needs out of them—votes—he’ll cast them aside.”
Trump III sat for the interview as his new book, “All In The Family: The Trumps And How We Got This Way” published Tuesday in the U.S., promising details of a “darker corner of the Trump empire.”
Trump III said he planned to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, but didn’t fully denigrate his uncle, telling ABC News “I’ve always enjoyed time with him.”
In other previously reported excerpts from Trump III’s book, he alleges he heard Trump use the N-word twice in a single incident in the 1970s while Trump was ranting about an apparent incident of vandalism to his car, suggesting without evidence that a Black person must have been responsible.
Trump’s nephew, whose adult son William has developmental disabilities, also rehashed in the ABC interview previously disclosed details from his book in which he alleges Trump suggested to him, during a 2020 White House meeting, that disabled people were too expensive and “maybe . . . should just die.”
In a subsequent phone call with his uncle to discuss the increasing cost of his disabled son’s medical care, Trump told his nephew that his son “doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida,” Trump III said.
Chief Critic
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called Trump III’s claims “fabricated and total fake news of the highest order” in a statement to ABC News.
Tangent
Trump III, along with his sister, Mary Trump, sued the former president and his siblings after their grandfather’s death in 1999, accusing them of cutting them out of their grandfather’s will. Fred Trump III and Mary Trump are the children of the former president’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr., who died of a heart attack related to alcoholism at the age of 42. Mary Trump has also publicly criticized her uncle, accusing him of being “clearly racist” in her 2020 book, “Too Much and Never Enough.”
Key Background
Trump was also accused of using the N-word by people who worked with him previously on “The Apprentice.” The allegations first surfaced when former contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman alleged she heard tapes of Trump using the racial slur, in reference to a Black contestant, while filming the first season in 2004. A former producer, Bill Pruitt, also alleged in a Slate exposé published in May after his nondisclosure agreement expired that he heard Trump using the slur while discussing the same Black contestant. The existence of tapes of Trump using the N-word has not been proven, and there have been no publicly released recordings of Trump using the N-word.
Further Reading
2022 midterms, 2024 presidential campaign, the January 6 House committee investigation, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster, the 2023 State of the Union Address, former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference and classified documents cases and his Manhattan hush money case. Dorn graduated in 2012 from the University of Dayton with a degree in journalism. Prior to joining Forbes, she covered New York City and state politics for the New York Post and City and State magazine. Follow her for updates and analysis on the 2024 presidential race, key Senate and House races and developments in Congress and at the White House.
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